“We were aware that timing was getting a little hazy. We’ve got Gendry running back, ravens flying a certain distance, dragons having to fly back a certain distance…In terms of the emotional experience, [Jon and company] sort of spent one dark night on the island in terms of storytelling moments.

We tried to hedge it a little bit with the eternal twilight up there north of The Wall. I think there was some effort to fudge the timeline a little bit by not declaring exactly how long we were there.

I think that worked for some people, for other people it didn’t. They seemed to be very concerned about how fast a raven can fly but there’s a thing called plausible impossibilities, which is what you try to achieve, rather than impossible plausibilities. So I think we were straining plausibility a little bit, but I hope the story’s momentum carries over some of that stuff.”

It’s cool that the show is so important to so many people that it’s being scrutinized so thoroughly. If the show was struggling, I’d be worried about those concerns, but the show seems to be doing pretty well so it’s OK to have people with those concerns.”

“I’m like, ‘Already? Now?! What?!’ I feel like I’d been lulled into a different pace. Everything happened quicker than I’m used to … a lot of things that normally take a season now take one episode.”

Jon Snow acteur Kit Harington voegde toe:

“This season is really different than any other season because it’s accelerating toward the end, a lot of stuff collides and happens much much quicker than you’re used to seeing on Thrones … it’s so different than what everybody is used to. It’s quite exciting.”

Showrunner D.B. Weiss vertelde:

“Things are moving faster because in the world of these characters the war that they’ve been waiting for is upon them. The conflicts that have been building the past six years are upon them and those facts give them a sense of urgency that makes [the characters] move faster.”

Put another way: Between Daenerys and her army sailing toward Westeros, the Night King and his army of the dead descending from the North and the Starks aggressively retaking Winterfell … there are multiple storm-of-swords battle fronts all coming together at the same time.

Ook showrunner David Benioff belooft een verhoogd tempo:

“For a long time we’ve been talking about ‘the wars to come. Well, that war is pretty much here. So it’s really about trying to find a way to make the storytelling work without feeling like we’re rushing it — you still want to give characters their due, and pretty much all the characters that are now left are all important characters. Even the ones who might have started out as relatively minor characters have become significant in their own right.”

Uitvoerend producent Bryan Cogman voegde nog toe:

“There are White Walkers and dragons and once they start to come together the story has to go where it goes.”

“Set in 1605, the historical drama is based around British radical Fawkes and a group of provincial English Catholics who attempted to blow up the House of Lords in UK Parliament and kill King James I in order to help restore a Catholic to the crown. The attempted plot, or Gunpowder Plot as its known, was foiled on November 5 when authorities at Westminster Palace found Fawkes guarding the explosives. To this day, Brits celebrate Guy Fawkes Night every year on November 5 with a fireworks display and by burning his effigy on a bonfire.”

“​I was hoping that there would be an outcry of ‘why?’ and ‘oh god, no, no’ rather than ‘thank god’. That was the right reaction as far as I was concerned! People didn’t want me to die, but he’s dead. So there you go, everyone has to get used to it.​ I haven’t done Thrones in a while. I had quite a lot of time off last year. I’ve been taking it easy. And relaxing. When I realised I was doing this, I had a few months to prepare for it, and something like this takes some working through before even getting into the rehearsal room.​”

“[A]fter wrestling with it for a month or so, I’ve decided not to script an episode for season six of GAME OF THRONES. Writing a script takes me three weeks, minimum, and longer when it is not a straight adaptation from the novels. And really, it would cost me more time than that, since I have never been good at changing gears from one medium to another and back again. Writing a season six script would cost me a month’s work on WINDS, and maybe as much as six weeks, and I cannot afford that. With David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Bryan Cogman on board, the scriptwriting chores for season six should be well covered. My energies are best devoted to WINDS.”

“Luckily, we’ve been talking about [the series outpacing the books] with George for a long time, ever since we saw this could happen, and we know where things are heading,” zei Benioff. “And so we’ll eventually, basically, meet up at pretty much the same place where George is going; there might be a few deviations along the route, but we’re heading towards the same destination. I kind of wish that there were some things we didn’t have to spoil, but we’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. “The show must go on… and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Hij vervolgde: “Game of Thrones” couldn’t have a long break just to wait for Martin to finish his last two books, as the presence of so many child actors in the cast increases the time pressure. Maisie [Williams] was the same age as Arya when it started, but now Maisie is a young woman and Arya is still 11. Time is passing very slowly in the books and very fast in real life.”

Ten slotte zei Benioff: “Last year we went out to Santa Fe for a week to sit down with him [Martin] and just talk through where things are going, because we don’t know if we are going to catch up and where exactly that would be. If you know the ending, then you can lay the groundwork for it. And so we want to know how everything ends. We want to be able to set things up. So we just sat down with him and literally went through every character. I think the thing that’s kind of fun for George is the idea that he can still have surprises for people even once they’ve watched the show through to the conclusion. There are certain things that are going to happen in the books that are different in the show. And I think people who love the show and want more — want to know more about the characters, want to know more about the different characters who might not have made the cut for the show — will be able to turn to the books.”

In een interview ging Kit Harington die Jon Snow speelt in de HBO-serie Game of Thrones, in op de grote hoeveelheid geweld. Ondanks alle kritiek ziet hij het probleem niet: “I don’t see a problem with it because you mostly always feel the consequences of that person dying. In Thrones it’s war and awful, awful things happen, as we see on the news daily. And if we’ve got an appetite for watching these things on the news then you can’t shy away from it on cable drama.”

Toch vindt hij de serie, “gory as hell.” Hij zei: “In Thrones, as much as they bury the death they see very quickly, there is an impact that those deaths have which I’m constantly playing. People are always dying around me in Thrones.”

Verder ging Harington in op seizoen vijf: “It was phenomenal this season. They’ve seriously overreached themselves. They’ve [showrunners David Benioff en D.B. Weiss] built it in the right way – it could have got a lot sillier a lot earlier and it hasn’t. It’s progressed in the right way story-wise. It’s so brilliant this year.”